Poco Mountain Girl

These little treats are similar to peanut butter cups, with a bit of a twist: I used almond butter and carob instead of peanut butter and chocolate.  Ever since I made them last week I’ve eaten at least one every day.  They might just be a little addictive.

I didn’t sweeten them at all, since carob has some natural sweetness to it.  You might want to add a little sweetener to the melted mixture, but I like them just like this.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup virgin coconut oil

1/3 cup carob powder

about 2 tablespoons almond butter

Method:

Melt coconut oil gently until liquified. Stir in carob powder until dissolved.

Pour 1 tablespoon of the mixture into each of 5 parchment muffin liners. Chill in freezer about 5 minutes, until hardened.

Spoon a teaspoon of almond butter onto the center of each and flatten gently, making sure to leave about 1/4″ space around the edge.  Pour remaining carob mixture (about 1 tablespoon each) over the almond butter to cover.  Chill in freezer.

You can easily make these more traditional by using peanut butter and cocoa powder.  Just be sure to add sweetener, since chocolate is much more bitter than carob.  I also experimented with adding shredded coconut to a couple of them, and found I really liked the extra crunch.

A similar recipe (without the nut butter) that I make often is here , along with a few tidbits on the benefits of coconut oil.  (By the way, if you don’t like the taste of your coconut oil, try a different brand.  The taste varies widely.)

You might think these contain a lot of fat, and they do–more than 2 tablespoons per muffin cup. But coconut oil can actually be key to a healthy metabolism.  There is so much marketing hype over fat-free and low-fat foods, but those can slow down your metabolism and lead to other problems.  Healthy fats like coconut oil help your body run like a well-oiled machine–from your organs and  arteries to your joints, skin, and hair.

I think it’s very interesting that people who eat a primitive diet in tropical cultures eat a ton of fat, mostly from coconut (50% and upwards!) and have virtually NO heart disease, cancer, or diabetes.  What they don’t eat are processed foods: sugar, refined grains, artificial additives, margarine, and cooking oils like corn, soy and canola.

It seems like our bodies just don’t know how to handle the foods that are fairly new in the last hundred years or so.  Even with all the advancements in medicine, we’re ridden with health problems that mankind has never–or rarely–encountered before.  That’s a little scary to me.

Before I hop off my coconut oil soapbox, let me just say that it also improves digestion, stabilizes blood sugar, helps prevent and reverse Alzheimers disease, contributes to thyroid health, and helps fight yeast conditions, bacteria, and viruses.  Some people even take a kind of “medicinal” tablespoon a day for weight management and general health.

As for me, I’d rather take my medicine couched in chocolately goodness and oozing with nut butter. 🙂

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 26th, 2013 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Happy Healthy Hippie Food, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.